Abstract

The "Yvettes" phenomenon has not received a great deal of attention in Québécois historiography. As a result, little is known about how the "Yvettes" assemblies of Montreal and Quebec City were organised, and even less is known about their participants. At the time, the media portrayed these women as having been manipulated by Liberal party officials. Early historical judgements reflected this belief. Moreover, historians were unwilling to consider the "Yvettes" as feminists. They were, at best, not antifeminists. A decade after the 1980 referendum, however, some historians came to accept that the "Yvettes" were not manipulated by Quebec's Liberal party. On the contrary, they had been active participants in the referendum campaign. Nonetheless, historical study of the "Yvettes" phenomenon has been hampered by the tacit alliance that has existed between egalitarian feminism and Quebec nationalism since the 1960s. This alliance has prevented many feminist historians from accepting the "Yvettes" movement as the expression of an alternative, and thus acceptable, form of feminism.